PISCATAWAY – Rutgers has had a home on Thursday night football ever since its landmark win against Louisville on the ESPN stand-alone national stage on Nov. 9, 2006, but the Big Ten Way is to play on Saturdays.

That staple hasn’t changed in the face of outside calls for the Big Ten to be less traditional and Rutgers will play 11 Saturday games after opening the season Thursday against Washington State in Seattle. Rutgers played three Thursday games last season, including its opener at Fresno State, but does not have another on any of its future schedules.

“A lot of the notoriety we’ve achieved over the last decade has been on Thursday night,” Rutgers coach Kyle Flood said on the Big Ten coaches conference call. “I try not to get involved in decisions that are going to be the same for everybody. For our program here at Rutgers, Thursday night has been in the past a really good night. But going into the future in the Big Ten, we’re looking forward to a season of games on Saturday afternoons. I think there is a lot of plusses to that as well and less disruption of the school week for the student-athlete.”

Rutgers and rival Louisville met for nine straight seasons (2005-13) on non-Saturdays and Flood recalled his first conference victory as a head coach – at South Florida on Thursday, Sept. 13, 2012. Rutgers also knocked off then-No. 2 South Florida on a Thursday night in 2007.

“The short week has its challenges – we’ve got an itinerary that we’ve used that’s been effective for us,” Flood said. “When it comes to those type of things, if it’s the same for both teams I don’t know that you are really in a disadvantage. You get a little extra time for the game afterwards. But I think there is a disruption to the student-athlete. There is no doubt about that. There is a day they’re not in classes when they normally would be. When we play on Saturday, we don’t miss classes.”

Leach’s take

Washington State coach Mike Leach, a noted passing guru, isn’t reading too much into facing a secondary that allowed a school-record 4,056 passing yards last season. Just like he doesn’t think Rutgers should read much into his defense ranking No. 84 against the run last season.

“I think you have to throw part of it out because there are a lot of new faces on both teams,” Leach said Tuesday morning on the Pac-12 coaches conference call.

The personnel changes haven’t stopped Leach from examining film of Rutgers defending the spreads of Fresno State, SMU and Houston last season. Each of those three teams scored at least 49 points against the Scarlet Knights.

“You pay attention to possible sets and schemes as you go through the film,” Leach said, “so we certainly pay a little more attention to that than somebody who packs it in there.”

While he has a record-setting quarterback in three-year starter Connor Halliday at his disposal, Leach has respect for Rutgers quarterback Gary Nova despite his much less gaudy statistics.

“You think about college football: There is almost nobody who has started games for four years and he started some his first year,” Leach said. “He has been king of the hill there for a long time.”

Coaching set-up

Rutgers offensive coordinator Ralph Friedgen will call plays from the upstairs booth Thursday night, while defensive coordinator Joe Rossi and special teams coordinator Bob Fraser will be on the field.

“The way the headphones are set up, all the coaches are on the same lines, and then on each side of the ball we have an alternate line in case two coaches need to discuss something kind of off-air – if they need to talk about something specifically about a position,” Flood said. “Every position has somebody up top who’s kind of watching and we have somebody on the field who’s watching.”